Michael Syngelus, Encomium S. Dionysii Areopagitae

Of Michael Syncellus, presbyter of Jerusalem: an encomium on Saint Dionysius

Truly a heavenly and divine tongue ought to have been present, one of those God-sent and fiery tongues such as were distributed to the eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, and an angelic voice, for him who wishes to praise Dionysius the revealer of God, the celebrator of the Deity that beholds all things and in all-perfect goodness runs round and holds together all things, which is worshipped and adored in the superessential and superdivine and supergood Trinity; the most theological expounder of the divine names and of the ineffable divine mysteries; the interpreter of the celestial hierarchy, and the praiser and marshaller of the celestial intellectual hosts, and the initiate and mystagogue and revealer of the ecclesiastical orderings, both of hierarchical leadership, and of sacred ministration, and of ritual initiation, and of all the divine wisdom and beauty of Christians; him who on account of purity of life and perfection of every virtue was entrusted by the wondrous Paul with the initiation into the sights and sounds seen by him and sounded into his ears when he was caught up to the third heaven; the contemporary and companion of the apostolic choir, and their rival in the sacred contests; the all-holiest among hierarchs, and most brilliant among martyrs, and most divinely wise among theologians, and most illuminative among teachers. Wherefore, O divine priesthood, and holy nation, and God-chosen assembly, I fear lest in taking in hand the praises of so great a luminary I may incur an indictment of rashness; for not even if all the eloquences of the orators who have ever lived should come together at once, would they be able to reach the summit of the worthy praises of the divinely speaking man whom we celebrate; much less the feebleness of my mind in discourses. Yet yielding to the urging of your love and faith, I will offer to God, and to the saint, and to you what is according to my power; for even if I should fall short of the praises befitting the excellences of him who is praised and

his merits and achievements, I rejoice exceedingly in being overcome; for the defeat of him who praises in the harmonies of encomiastic diction is no loss to him who is praised.

Whence therefore shall I begin the praise? Shall I use the laws of rhetorical encomia, collecting themes of easily shifting fame and human boasting from things that go upon the ground, and are dissolved, and fall away from one place to another, and perish—I mean race, and fatherland, and wealth, and worldly glory, and pageantry—for him who is higher and better than all these things? Or rather from the imperishable, and truly blessed, and everlasting glories which he won through his noblest conversion from idolatrous worship to Christ the truly existing God, and his evangelical training, and his athletic struggle? For what will a genealogy of earth-creeping parents, wriggling about the mire, and most superstitious, contribute towards true renown for him who has been counted worthy of the adoption of the All-King God, and numbered with the celestial angelic ranks, and clothed at once with hierarchical and apostolic brightness together with the divine heralds around Peter and Paul, and born of that most blessed generation, and crowned with the diadem of martyrdom? Or what distinction will a fatherland fit for driving horses and feeding sheep, and compassed about with plains, and mountains, and wooded glens, and ravines, and thickly planted with meadows, and groves, and trees of every kind, and plants, and encircled with sea harbours, and watered round about with rivers, and springs, and lakes, and adorned with magnitude, and setting forth the tombs of its builders as a marvel to those who pass by, afford to him who has gained the city Jerusalem above, whose walls have been painted by the hand of the Lord, and where the dwelling of all who rejoice is, and the sound of those keeping festival, and the voice of exultation? Nevertheless, even if these things have been said by us in the prelude, judging the all-blessed man to be one of the supramundane beings and removed from earthly things, yet neither was he one born of obscure parents, nor did he have an inglorious native land, nor indeed was he a citizen of a mean city. For what part of the inhabited world had not heard of the splendour of Greece? Or who is ignorant of Athens, the boast of Greece, the renowned and all-celebrated city, the haunt of philosophers, and the training-school and school of those loudly famed for eloquence? Whence this Dionysius sprang, and of which he was a most distinguished leader, and among the judges in the Areopagus was pre-eminent and foremost, the conspicuousness and great glory of whose race has been recorded at length by the writers of the Atthides, Androtion and Philochorus.

From which things it is also possible to infer the primacy, and honour, and renown of his ancestors; for among the haughty Athenians to so great a magistracy he would not

have been advanced, had he not, in addition to wisdom and good order of mind, been resplendent also with temperance, and justice, and courage, and the conspicuous pre-eminence of his race; for by the fact that Luke, the most truth-loving and wisest, in his holy and all-wise composition of the apostolic Acts, relating concerning those who believed in Athens through the divinely inspired teaching and public speech of the blessed Paul at the Areopagus, spoke by way of pre-eminence, Among whom was also Dionysius the Areopagite (Acts 17:34), the superiority of this intellectual lamp both in distinction of race, and in abundance of virtue, and knowledge, and wisdom, and eloquence, is clearly demonstrated. For he did not say, Among whom was a man by name Dionysius, as though on account of someone obscure, but, Among whom was also Dionysius the Areopagite, intimating thereby that the man was celebrated in the mouths of all, and was most famous. And let no one suppose that this sacred brevity of speech does not contribute greatly to the aim of our discourse; for even though the word is brief, yet great is the wealth gushing forth from it for the praise of this admired man. For thus Moses the beholder of God, in a certain most concise saying of the creation of the world, having made mention of Melchizedek, who prefigured the spiritual priesthood among us, without signifying either of what parents he had been born a son, or whence he had sprung, has left his memory as though on an immortal pillar to be praised everlastingly by subsequent generations. Come then yourself, O evangelist of world-wide salvation and joy, and great herald of the ineffable incarnation of the Word of God, and most unerring orator of His divine signs and mighty works, and fullest of the evangelists, all-blessed Luke, come tell us who this Dionysius is, and of what sort, and unfold your most concise sacred account whereby you brought forward this hierophant.

This is he, he says, the most glorious of the select men and nobles throughout Greece, and the most eminent of the Council of the Areopagus; not so much rendered famous by the dignity, as he himself rendered it more illustrious. This is he who was not only most perfect in every form of logical science, most philosophical of the Stoics and Epicureans and the other philosophers, and most Attic and most skilful of the Atticizers and grammarians, and most rhetorical of orators, and most contemplative of those occupied with astronomy, and most exact in the remaining encyclical studies, but also most complete in the quaternion of the virtues. This is he who used the most unswerving balance of justice, and was the most upright of those who administered law in Athens; and that too while still riveted to Greek modes of worship, and defiled with the abominations of Zeus, and glorying in the idolatrous objects of worship of Pallas Athena, and the things according to Orpheus who drew all by musical

strains, welcoming mythical theologies, and gladly taking delight in the old-wifely Theogony of Hesiod. But when the saving grace that appeared to all men scattered the mist of Greek folly and drunkenness, and pulled down from the earth every idolatrous error, and everywhere throughout the inhabited world, like certain long-winged eagles flying across and running through it, the disciples of our God and Saviour Christ illumined the world with the light of the knowledge of God; and Paul, the mightiest of theologians and the most divine apostle of the Gentiles, the heaven-reaching trumpet, the vessel of election, came to stay at Athens, sounding forth as with a trumpet the world-saving and life-bringing proclamation, and bearing the divine and lordly Name, and having beheld the city pre-eminent among Greek cities given over to idols, and being set on fire with divine zeal, having warmly entered the city, he conversed with the Jews and Greeks who chanced to meet him, both wise and unlearned, and preached the good news of Jesus, Who ransoms us from the tyranny of the bait-laying and man-slaying dragon and from death and corruption, and the resurrection of the dead, and astounded the philosophers of the school of Epicurus and those of the Painted Porch with his strange and ineffable and supramundane wisdom, and was brought to the court of the Areopagus, and charmed those who surpassed all men in philosophy; straightway Dionysius stood aloof from the miry lake of idol-madness, and cleaved to Paul who breathed forth a divine sweet savour; he was torn away from the introducers of deceit, and was bound fast to the herald of truth; he was drawn up from the abyss of perdition, and flew up towards the height of salvation; he departed from the gloom of godlessness, and betook himself to the light of the knowledge of God; he withdrew from what is truly vanity, and went over to what is really blessedness; he renounced Beliar the procurer of death, and ranged himself with Christ the Cause and Bestower of life; he abominated the uncleanness of demons, and embraced the purity of angels; he shook off the muddy worldly matter, and clasped to his bosom the immaterial way of life. For having become a mirror receptive of the ray flashing forth through Paul—who vied in brightness with the cherubic throne, inasmuch as he had Christ, Who rides upon the cherubim, ringing in his ears—and being filled full of the imparted splendour, he has been illumined, and whole, with his whole soul, and mind, and heart, he has been glued to his teacher. O the fitness of this noble champion for the reception of the apostolic light-giving exhortation! O that yielding and most translucent soul, which most easily took upon itself the impressions of the archetypal seals of the evangelical teachings! O the heart that easily and without turning back broke away from every fleshly attachment, and shook off every sort of material appearance, and swiftly believed the saving proclamation, and cleaved to the God-proclaiming, heaven-coursing Paul who leads the way by the hand towards the heavenly mansions! O the fertile and rich intellectual plough-land, which took into its bosom the life-giving seed, and manifold

and noblest ear of corn has yielded! The pride of ruling and judicial glory did not rear up and throw him back; the yearning for friendship, and companionship of age, and custom did not rein him back; the tyrannical love of parents and kinsfolk and household did not hold him back; the mad gadfly of tangled wealth and possessions did not bind him; the pleasure of bodies did not make him slack; the desire for a dainty way of life and luxury did not make him effeminate; but having heard the God-spoken voice of the herald, and having paid heed to none of the things that are wont to delight mortals, he was eager to cleave to him all at once, just as iron to a magnet. Now we admire the patriarch Abraham for having obeyed God when He commanded him to emigrate from his kindred and fatherland, and to set out into an unknown foreign land; and very justly so. And we also extol Elisha as divine, who left behind the yokes of oxen, and bade farewell to his ancestral hearth, and without any delay followed Elijah the Spirit-bearing zealot when he called him; and very rightly so. Again, we exalt Philip with praises, who when Jesus the Captain of salvation called him forth ran to Him swiftly without dispute and followed Him eagerly, and most fittingly indeed.

With how many and what sort of applauses, therefore, ought we to honour this man, and crown him with auspicious acclamations, who had not been instructed beforehand in the Mosaic law, nor educated in prophetic utterances, nor had his ears trained beforehand in historical narratives of divine marvels, nor had seen beforehand signs wrought wondrously; how most readily he accepted the simple word of Paul, a man unlearned, and poor, and some stranger, neither tricked out with rhetorical intensities, nor wrought with sophistic propositions, but having received it like some seed cast for the first time into the earth, and having cast it without any doubt into the depth of his mind, straightway he brought to perfection the life-bearing fruits of pure faith, so as all but to join in the chorus singing with Isaiah the most far-seeing prophet when he cries aloud: Because of Thy fear, O Lord, we have conceived in the womb, and have been in travail, and have brought forth; we have made the spirit of Thy salvation upon the earth (Isa. 26:18). These things, indeed, Luke the great herald, being present with us in the Spirit, and celebrating together with us this sacred memorial of the hieromartyr, and standing as leader of the assembly of those who celebrate and hymn it, and leading the praises, has recounted for us. And as many things as we have received through unwritten or written tradition, weaving these into the web of encomiums like certain flowers of skilful embroideries, and sweetening the spiritual feast as with certain seasonings, we have come to set them before you, the fond listeners and spiritual banqueters. Such an account, then, has come down to us, handed down from of old from father to son: how this great Dionysius, at the time of the sav-

ing Passion, when the earth was shaken throughout, and the sun hid its own gleamings at midday, not enduring to behold the Creator of the universe nailed in the flesh to a gibbet and tasting death—Him Who according to His divine essence is impassible and indestructible—being exceedingly astounded at the marvel, and having surpassed human knowledge, perceiving what had come to pass, said: "The unknown God suffers in the flesh, on Whose account the universe has been darkened and shaken." And straightway having noted the time at which this world-wide wonder had been accomplished, he kept it by him, eagerly awaiting what would be proclaimed therefrom. Moreover, he himself also makes mention in the letter to Polycarp of that most horrifying eclipse of the sun.

Yet it is better to adorn our discourse with the most eloquent words of him who surpassed all men in divine utterance and eloquence, as a royal diadem is adorned with the most translucent of costly stones. For since Apollophanes, a philosopher and a Greek by religion, was indignant at and reviled this thrice-blessed, great-merchandised, and admirable man—as being forsooth his dearest comrade and kinsman, who abominated his ancestral objects of worship, while preferring, pursuing, and embracing the faith of the Christians, and championing it most combatively, and using the learning of the Greeks against the Greeks—undertaking to refute this reviling and indignation for Polycarp, who flourished with many fruits of godliness and virtue, before whom the sophist also made his jeers, he says thus: "Now you say that the sophist Apollophanes reviles me, and calls me a parricide, as using in an unholy manner the things of the Greeks against the Greeks; yet it were truer for us to say to him that Greeks use in an unholy manner divine things against divine things, attempting through the wisdom of God to cast out divine worship. And I for my part do not mean the opinion of the multitude, who cleave materially and passionately to the myths of the poets, but Apollophanes himself also uses in an unholy manner divine things against divine things; for by the knowledge of beings, which is rightly called philosophy by him, and which by the divine Paul is called the wisdom of God, true philosophers ought to have been led up to the Cause both of beings themselves and of the knowledge of them. And that I may not refute the opinion of others or his own contrary to what seems fitting, Apollophanes, being a wise man, ought to have perceived that nothing of the heavenly order and motion could ever otherwise have been turned aside, unless it had Him Who is both the Sustainer and Cause of its being moving it thereto, Who makes all things and transforms them, according to the sacred word. How then does he not worship the God of the universe known to us and truly existing from that which is, admiring Him for His all-causing and super-ineffable power, when the sun and the moon, together with the universe, are fixed by Him, with a most supernatural power and standing still, unto complete immobility, and for the measure of a whole day all things stand fast at the same signs?" And a little further on: "And say to him: What do you say concerning the eclipse that took place at the saving Cross? For both of us then, at Heliopolis being present together

and standing side by side, saw the moon paradoxically falling upon the sun (for it was not the time of conjunction); and again from the ninth hour until evening we saw it supernaturally stationed opposite the diameter of the sun. And remind him also of something else besides: for he knows that we saw the incursion itself also beginning from the east, and coming as far as the solar edge, then stepping back; and again both the incursion and the clearing taking place not from the same side, but from that diametrically opposite. Such were the supernatural wonders of that time, and possible only to Christ the Cause of all, Who does great and marvellous things, of which there is no number. Say these things, if it is lawful for you, and, if it is possible, O Apollophanes, refute them even against me who was then both present with you, and beheld them together with you, and examined all things together with you, and admired them together with you."

When Paul therefore stood in the midst of the Areopagus and proclaimed with all boldness of speech: "Men of Athens, in all things I perceive that you are very religious; for as I passed along and observed your objects of worship, I found also an altar on which had been inscribed: To an Unknown God. Whom therefore you worship in ignorance, Him I proclaim to you" (Acts 17:22–23); and when he had gone through all the rest of his divine discourse, straightway this most admirable man, having received the word as spoken from heaven, became his inseparable follower. And he utterly renounces all Greek rites and ordinances, and abominates every sort of demonic error; and he pursues the heavenly discipleship, and is instructed in the rudiments of right doctrines and evangelical teaching, and is thoroughly taught the blameless faith, and approaches the regenerating font of life-giving baptism, and puts off the corrupted old man, and puts on Christ Himself, the Author of life, and is refashioned, and instead of a corruptible slave and a son of corruptible flesh, becomes a son of the uncreated and incorruptible, all-causing and all-working consubstantial sovereign Trinity, and is rendered incorruptible, and receives the free remission of his debts, and is clothed in exchange with the most luminous symbols of freedom, adoption, and lordship, and is counted worthy of perfection, and puts on as a breastplate the armour of light, and is initiated into the most perfect mysteries of the supreme wisdom. Thenceforth he already advances to the cultivation of the vineyard, and lays hold of the working of the evangelical commandments, and pursues the angel-imitating way of life, and attends as a disciple upon Hierotheus the God-inspired master (whom he himself also commemorates with encomiums in his theological writings), and is perfected in the footsteps that are according to God.

And he advances to the contests of self-control and ascetic training, and takes all care for the preservation of the gift, and hastens to offer to the Giver of good things Who bestowed it fruits worthy of His goodness-originating goodness, and against the adversary of our

life and salvation he contends in return; for he has been initiated into the mystery of how after the sinking down of the Adamic sin in the streams of Jordan, and the cleansing of mortal nature, which He procured for us, having Himself been cleansed Who had no need of cleansings, the Cause and Provider of beings, the only-begotten Son of God and Word of God, co-unoriginate and co-eternal with Him Who begat Him, and consubstantial, and being the unvarying image of the paternal hypostasis, and the effulgence of His glory; Who formed man according to His own image and according to His likeness, and when through the bait of the hostile dragon, the author of evil, and through the insolence of the woman, he set at naught the sovereign commandment, and was defiled by sin, and slipped down into corruption, did not overlook him, but by the good pleasure of the Father and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, through an ineffable sea of love for mankind, came down from the paternal bosom, whence He was not parted—He Who fills all things, and is circumscribed by nothing, the divine descent not being understood as a change of place, far from it! (for how could that which is bodiless, and boundless, and inconceivable change place?) but in a manner befitting God; for He empties Himself for a short while of the divine glory by dispensation, that He may fill me with His own divinity, and that I may become god by grace; and having entered like a seed into the virgin womb of the unwedded, all-pure, and ever-virgin maiden daughter of David, and having created flesh from her blood, and animated it with a rational and intellectual soul, and united it to Himself, and having been born from her as God incarnate, twofold He Who is simple, in two perfect natural wills and energies, and in all things having become a mortal like us, apart from sin, having remained without any change and confusion even after the incarnation one and the same Son, and one hypostasis; and having come to be under time, He Who is beyond all temporal motion, and is by nature Maker of all the ages; and having accepted bodily growth, and having come to manly stature, He Who is all-perfect and more than perfect; and having been baptized, straightway coming up from the baptism He hastens upon the course against the man-slaying apostate, and destroys the three-headed engine of his dread wrestlings; and He wrestles down the boastful and vaunting tyrant, and abolishes the manifold swarm of his wars, and renders him easy to vanquish, showing us a pattern of the steadfast battle against him, and giving us the occasions of prowess against him.

Regulating and directing his own life, therefore, towards the pattern of the saving way of life, this noble man, having risen up from the fountain of life-originating illumination, and having armed himself with the grace thence derived, and having been anointed with the divine ointment (just like athletes in the wrestling-schools ranged in battle array against a hostile phalanx), straightway ranges himself against the most hostile highwayman of the journey that leads up to heaven, the most crafty warrior, and lays aside the cares of life, and of the upward tension towards God

he becomes wholly a lover and champion, spending the day and spending the night in earnest prayers, and persevering in sleepless all-night vigils, and taming the flesh with fasting, and subjecting the worse portion to the better—the dust to the mind—and refining away the earthy grossness, which is wont to stand in the way of minds, like some gloomy mist before the solar rays. Thence he is led up to the height of contemplation, and gladly dwells in thoughts concerning God, withdrawing the godlike part of his soul from every material thought, and wholly wings its intellectual eye towards the radiance flashing forth from thence, delighting as an eyewitness in the apostolic teachings, and making every new and old sacred scripture his own breath and food through the advantages of practical and contemplative virtue; having become manifest to the most clear-sighted eyes of the blessed Paul, and having been judged worthy of the rank of the hierarchy, he is ordained by him first bishop of Athens, and is proclaimed father of his own fatherland, and is entrusted with the first-fruits of rational affairs, and is entrusted with the people who had believed there; for it was needful that the city which had borne, and nourished, and educated him, should first be adorned with her own shoot, and nursling, and pupil—the first of those born spiritually from her to Christ the Cause of salvation, and shiningly holding the first place in all primacies of life and word—and should be guided by the pastoral leadings of her all-excellent son, who illumined her footsteps according to God, and led her unto saving pastures, and caused her to dwell in a place of green grass (Ps. 22:2)—namely, of smooth and unadulterated teaching—and nourished her beside the water of rest, of the truly blessed lot.

O the God-decreed good fortune of the metropolis of the Athenians, how thrice-blessed it is! How truly and thrice-happy a city, having borne and obtained such a shepherd, and leader, and teacher, as the Israelite people of old obtained Moses! For indeed he has been shown forth as a certain other Moses, having shot down Egypt—I mean the gloomy and polytheistic idolatrous error—not with ten plagues, but with ten thousand most deadly and fiery shafts of his sacred doctrines and teachings; and having drowned the spiritual Pharaoh together with his destructive powers—the weed-like heretical idle tales springing up from his evil-demoniac deceit—in the most polished depths of his all-wise divine knowledge and eloquence; and having saved the chosen people of Christ, fugitives from the tyranny of Beliar and superstitious worship, trampling down the raging sea of manifold enemies rising up, guided by the grace shining through in him like a pillar of light, and guarded by the shelter of the All-Holy Spirit as by a cloud, unto the waveless haven of blameless faith; and having altogether ascended above ground-creeping things, and upon the supreme vantage-point of the mountain of virtues having planted his beautiful

feet having been planted, and having entered into the divine darkness, and having conversed with God, and having received the tablets of divine manifestation and lawgiving, and with his palms lifted up in the form of the cross having routed the godless Amalek, and healing those tripped up and evilly caught by viperous bites—the demonic ambushes and shafts—by the Spirit of the Word Who hung upon a tree and was put to death in the flesh, and put to death the opposing powers, and was nobly reverenced, and worshipped, and proclaimed by him. And as another Joshua cutting the Jordan, and bringing across the chosen people walking on foot with unwetted footsteps, and lifting up the all-venerable and all-sacred God-receiving intellectual ark that was to sprout forth from him, and casting down the strongholds of the ill-named people of Jericho, the spiritual foreigners, and of the faction of heretics, through his many-circled and manifold contests on behalf of godliness, battered down and overturned by the hierophantic trumpets, holding forth his sun-like and illuminating word and the light-bearing wise governance supplied to him from heaven for the driving out of the ravening wolves—the evil teachers who ravage the rational flocks—and procuring for those who are being saved the everlasting inheritance in the heavenly Jerusalem, just as that man stayed both sun and moon for the succour of the rescued divine people, to drive out the enemies of the land of promise, hastening to distribute by lot the possession coming in to him; and as another David having slung at him who boasted mightily against the divine battle-line and reproached its defender, and having struck the avenging fiend with a stone, and having won a most all-renowned victory against the adversaries, and being sung with myriads of triumphal applauses; for indeed this man, having played the man youthfully, nerved with faith and hope and confidence towards Christ, has cast down with a nobleness firmer than rock the dread destroyer who works in persecuting tyrants; and having carried off the crown of victory, he is continually honoured with ten-thousand-woven hymns and encomiums. And as another Ezekiel, a beholder and expounder of most mystical divine spectacles, delineating varieties of theophanies and symbolic forms, and through sensible images leading up our mind by most subtle sacred expositions unto the contemplation of immaterial and intellectual things.

Yet what need is there for me to liken such an admirable hierophant to those who shadow forth the light, when one ought rather to compare him to those who were counted worthy to dwell and converse in person with the Light Himself? To that great and supreme Peter, indeed, must he be likened, to whom the unoriginate and unbegotten Father revealed the pre-eternal and timeless generation of the co-unoriginate and co-eternal Son, which is altogether incomprehensible and boundless to every mind and word; upon whom, having proved a rock, an unshakeable foundation of the faith, Christ, the true rock of life, both creative and sustaining of beings,

built His own Church (Matt. 16:18), and declared him key-holder and bestower of the habitation and inheritance in the heavens, having granted him divine authority both to loose and to bind the chains of sins. Who also flashed upon royal Rome with the wonder-workings all-blessedly springing forth from Christ, and transformed the western dimness into most translucent brightness; or to the son of thunder, who thundered down upon the world the things divine, and supernatural, and inaccessible to all human ears and minds, and unattainable even by the supramundane essences themselves, inasmuch as he leaned upon the breast of the true and enhypostatic Wisdom, and drew forth from the all-blessed and ever-flowing treasures of its mystic and divine knowledge the most limpid streams of theology; or to Paul his own illuminator and sacred initiator would it be more fitting to liken him, who passed beyond the heavenly vaults, and beheld things unseen by mortals, and heard in his ears things which it is not lawful to hear, and was initiated into most mystical words (2 Cor. 12:4), and set foot in the paradise of our ancient fatherland, and explored the blessedness and way of life there—from which, through their own rashness and transgression of the sovereign commandment, our forefathers became exiles—who also like a winged bird traversed the whole inhabited world, and captured Gentile harshness out of unbelief into faith. For having imitated their burning heat of divine zeal, and sincerity of love, and gentleness of purpose, and sympathy towards neighbours, and gloriousness of modesty, and illustriousness of courage and freedom of speech, and having refashioned his whole life after the godlike pattern of the way of life of each, he worthily received from the Lord apostolic grace, and power of signs, and prophetic illumination, and a sea of theology.

For having appointed the wisdom gathered by him from Greek education as a handmaid of the wisdom above, and like a wise bee having consecrated the fairest ornaments of the lower learning to the divine and heavenly wisdom, and having been filled with inspiration from the most thearchic outpouring of light, he spoke and theologized and composed things that astound every mind; for having flown up in thought from the consideration of things seen unto the contemplation of things unseen, and having contemplated the threefold Churches of the supramundane most brilliant ranks, and having most nobly delineated the three most holy angelic orders in each, as though he were some supramundane and heavenly angel and ranged in the same rank with the bodiless ones, and having recounted the good order and heavenly hierarchy among them, he reverently lifts up the light-like part of his soul unto the throne of the super-divine Divinity; and with lips cleansed by the divine and most purifying coal (Isa. 6:6–7), he theologizes the one indivisible, uncreated Godhead in Trinity, one Lordship creative of the universe, both providential and sustaining, one essence, one authority, and kingdom, and power, and one will and energy, and the three in unity

consubstantial and co-eternal and co-unoriginate hypostases, divided indeed in number and by unchangeable and immovable properties, yet united in Godhead, not confounded, but existing in one another without confusion, each contemplated with its own property, not parted by place, nor by limitation, nor by any circumscription whatsoever (for they are bodiless and uncircumscribed), far from it! but distinguished by conceptual reflections alone, in so far as it is possible to comprehend their triadic enumeration without mixture and coalescence, worshipped and adored with one worship and adoration; instructing us to revere one God, one Lord, worshipped and adored in three hypostases, the Son and the Spirit being referred to one principle and cause; and the Son indeed having been begotten before all ages from the Father alone, that is, from His essence, both alone and in a sole manner, bodilessly, and impassibly, and timelessly; while the Spirit in turn proceeds from the Father Himself alone, and goes forth through the Son, and has been manifested to men; teaching a monarchy, not that which one person circumscribes (for it is possible for the one, being at variance with itself, to become many), but that which equality of honour of nature constitutes, and harmony of will, and identity of motion, and convergence towards the One from Whom it is.

Yet I seem like one wishing to measure the abyss with a cup, in attempting to set forth the all-supreme theology of this great theologian with the lowly little words of our humility; for that God-illumined book lies before us, sending forth gleamings of heavenly words more brightly than solar light, driving away the soul-destroying gloom of falsely-called knowledge, and making clear and plain the certainty of right and divine doctrines; for not only did it pluck up by the roots the heretical cavils and marvel-tales sown over the wheat by the sower of tares in apostolic times, but it also pulled down root and branch the godless blasphemies and railings that afterwards sprang up against the holy consubstantial sovereign Trinity, and those against the incarnate dispensation of God the Word, Christ our Saviour, and those that later sprang up against the Christian fullness, and against the setting up and veneration of the holy and venerable icons in the all-pure Churches and apostolic sees throughout the whole inhabited world—God, that is to say, foreseeingly from afar through his tongue, sharper than any two-edged sword, plucking out beforehand and cutting off beforehand every sort of poisonous and destructive sprouting of heretical seeds, while establishing and confirming the truth of the evangelical and apostolic proclamations and traditions. Therefore we must bring forward word for word the most gold-gleaming sacred exposition of his God-bright and God-moved expression concerning the three-hypostasized Godhead, and the manifestation unto men of One of the Trinity, the only-begotten Son of God, through His birth from the Virgin; for in the unfolding of the Divine Names he says thus:

"Whence in almost all theological treatise we see the Thearchy sacredly hymned both as a Monad and a Henad, on account of the simplicity and unity of its supernatural indivisibility, from which, as from a unifying power, we are unified, and when our divisible diversities have been supramundanely folded together, we are gathered into a godlike monad and God-imitating union; and as a Trinity, on account of the three-hypostasized manifestation of the superessential fruitfulness, from which every fatherhood in heaven and on earth is and is named (Eph. 3:15); and as Cause of beings, since all things were brought unto being through its essence-making goodness; and as wise and beautiful, because all beings, preserving the properties of their own nature uncorrupted, are full of all divine harmony and sacred comeliness.

"And pre-eminently loving towards mankind, because in one of its hypostases it truly and wholly shared in the things that are ours, recalling to itself and raising up human extremity, from which the simple Jesus was ineffably compounded, and the Eternal took temporal extension, and came to be within our nature, He Who superessentially transcends every order according to all nature, with the unchangeable and unconfused stability of His own properties." And in harmony with these things are what he writes further concerning the incarnation of the Lord to Gaius: "How, you say, is Jesus, Who is beyond all things, essentially ranged together with all men? For not as Cause of men is He here called man, but as being Himself according to complete essence truly man. Yet we do not define Jesus in a merely human way; for He is neither man only, nor superessential if man only, but truly man is He Who is pre-eminently loving towards mankind, above men and after the manner of men having taken substance from the substance of men, He Who is superessential. And none the less is He overflowing with superessentiality, He Who is ever superessential, assuredly by the abundance thereof, even having truly come into substance, He took substance above substance, and above man He wrought the things of man; and a virgin supernaturally conceiving makes this plain, and unstable water bearing up the weight of material and earthy feet, and not yielding, but by a supernatural power compacted together so as not to pour apart. Why should one go through the rest, which are very many, whereby he who sees divinely will know beyond mind that even the things affirmed regarding the love for mankind of Jesus have the force of a superlative negation? And to speak concisely, He was not even man—not as not being man, but as being from men beyond men, and having become man above man; and for the rest, having done neither the divine things as God, nor the human things as man, but since God had become man, having administered for us a certain new and theandric energy."

And in the teaching of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy

unfolding the contemplation concerning the divine consecration of the ointment, he will say: "Therefore the most divine order of the supercelestial essences was not ignorant that the most thearchic Jesus came down in order to be sanctified. And it sacredly understands that He lowered Himself among the things that are ours through divine and ineffable goodness, and seeing Him sanctified in a manner befitting man by the Father, and Himself, and the Spirit, it knows its own Principle holding fast its essential unchangeableness in whatever things it works thearchically. Whence the tradition of the sacred symbols places the seraphim around the divine ointment when it is being sanctified, knowing and delineating Christ as unvarying in His true material incarnation according to us." O the most blessed lips that uttered these things! How truly upon them has been poured out the grace of the gifts of the Paraclete (Ps. 44:3), whence come the free gifts to those who have been divinely cleansed in soul and body, among whom was this all-holiest hierophant! O the hierophantic tongue most fit for the service of divine utterance, which most revealingly made plain such things of the mystic initiations! Truly, according to the oracle, it proved the pen of a swiftly-writing scribe (Ps. 44:2). O the most radiant mind that was illumined with such thoughts transcending all mind and word! For what mind, seeing most keen-sightedly and divinely, will not behold the whole most hostile phalanx of heretics—just like a multitude of wounded men defiled with blood and dust amid certain most grievous cries—fallen down and perished within the briefest compasses of these God-spoken words? These things indeed, even very few, have been culled by us like flowers from his most beautiful dogmatic meadows, enough to adorn the praise of his supreme theology, and of the incomparable and most translucent orthodoxy of the true and unassailable faith. Yet to the steering wisdom and pastoral science wherewith he governed the flock entrusted to him, what worthy applauses could I have strength to fit? For as a helmsman sitting upon the stern, and having laid hold of the tillers, wakefully surveys from all sides the onset of the winds; and guards beforehand against the squally ones often coming from afar or from near at hand, and secures the sailors beforehand, and anticipating the impact of the tempest, slackens beforehand the sail by the forestays and lowers it.

And towards the fair winds he rises up, and having spread out the sail again, skilfully steers the merchant-ship with the rudder, and rejoicingly accomplishes the voyage, while the wave resounds around the keel, and the favouring breeze blows from astern. And if anywhere a billowy surge rises up against it, sometimes by his wise art he sets the vessel higher than the waves, and saves it unshipwrecked; and if ever a calm and deep stillness should lull to sleep every sort of triple wave, not even so does he rest and sleep, but orders the rowers to drive the ship on with the oars, and exhorts them to be sober continually, so that the mariners, having escaped the dangers, together with their cargoes

sailing fair he may bring to anchor in the harbour; and moreover, just as some goatherd wards off with spears the destructive wild beasts that rush upon them, and with a sling and a shepherd's staff, and if at midnight they should attempt to make a raid, scares them away with torches and darts of fire; and guards the sheep round about, going around everywhere, leading them away from destructive and unwholesome pastures, and leading them unto those that are profitable and fairest; and keeping unharmed that which stands firm and is healthy, while setting upright, and binding up, and anointing and healing that which has fallen, or grown sick, or been bruised, or wounded; and oftentimes tearing away even from the claws and mouths of ravening wild beasts that which had been seized while still breathing and palpitating, and rekindling it, and bringing it back as it were from death unto life: in the very same manner this wisest helmsman, having been brought forward to steer the newly-built Church like a ship in the midst of the surge of the sea stirred up from all sides, and having been entrusted with the oversight of a newborn rational flock while idol-madness strongly prevailed, and both the tyrant and the vain wise men and rhetoricians of the world raged more madly than wild beasts against those who were passing over from Jewish shadowy law-worship or Greek godlessness unto the pure faith in Christ, was shown forth as a most renowned protector, and a most genuine shepherd of Christ, and truly worthy of the apostolic presidency, tending the God-chosen people with a provident and sleepless and courageous mind, and turning away the rabid fury of those openly alien to the faith and opposed to the divine proclamation, both by the vigour of his most pure and bold prayers, and by the stretchings out of his holy hands and earnest supplications towards God Who is able to shatter it.

And of those who in outward pretence belonged to the household, while disposed no better than the worst enemies, and clothed on the outside with a sheep's skin, while brooding within in the habit and mind of a wolf (Matt. 7:15), he made the evil-stitching and deceitfulness easy for all to detect. Moreover, the propositions, objections, and counter-propositions of the sophists and rhetoricians who devised subtleties against the saving doctrine and used dialectical methods and sophistic and rhetorical clevernesses, he accounted a spider's web easy to dissolve and easy to break in pieces, most easily tearing apart and dissolving each of the mind-stealing sophisms and problems put forward by them; and moreover he continued wakeful against the enemies of the pathway of salvation, by the all-powerful dominion of our God and King Christ putting down their snorting arrogance, and refuting their falsely-called knowledge. And he accounted it of great importance to wipe out from the souls of those being instructed the brands of godlessness and abomination evilly stamped upon them before, and to inscribe instead the teachings of godliness and supramundane wisdom. Nor did he neglect, as one might suppose, to demand the fruits of the things which he handed down and taught thoroughly; by no means, but initiations into the divine words existing apart from deeds, to trees

that are luxuriant with the flourishing of leaves, yet sick with fruitlessness, he firmly maintained them to be like; and he taught thoroughly that faith apart from works is dead (Jas. 2:26), instructing the faithful that they must adorn themselves with the observances of the commandments, and that nothing else has been established as a clearer token than this of pure and steadfast faith and love towards Christ, and admonishing them ever to fear the future horrifying judgement-seat, at which each man shall be required to give an account of the things he has lived and done; and he who has kept the right faith, and pursued a life befitting a Christian, and pleased the incorruptible Judge by his works, shall receive the everlasting delight of the truly blessed good things; whereas he who has not added to his faith the best way of life and practice, but has defiled it with wickedness, shall have exacted from him the due penalty of his own folly, and shall be punished unyieldingly and endlessly. For he tutored and regulated all to walk according to the evangelical path, and to live according to the apostolic tradition, dispensing in due season with judgement the measure of corn of the word (Luke 12:42); for those who were still babes in habit and newly-formed he nourished with milk (1 Cor. 3:2)—I mean with the simpler and more elementary teachings; while those who were mature in stature, and capable of taking manly food (Heb. 5:14), inasmuch as they had been nobly cleansed beforehand in both body and soul, he nourished with the perfect and mystical wisdom, teaching more by the character of the things which he set forth beforehand in himself, becoming an excellent pattern of virtue to those tended by him, than by word; for since the common body of the Church was composed of many and diverse nations, and customs, and characters, and words, the same man was a guardian both simple, and manifold, and varied: simple indeed in uprightness and truth, freed from all underhandedness and duplicity; and varied in that by the resourcefulness of his well-aimed administration and presidency he offered to each the appropriate treatment and regimen, and to those who were sick in soul—to one this, and to another that—wisely and fittingly dispensed a pain-healing medicine; for those who were running well he urged on, forgetting the things that are behind, to stretch forward to the things that are before (Phil. 3:13); while the sluggish and slothful, in turn, he spurred on to the imitation of those running nobly. And if any of the sheep leaped away from the fold, and wandered far astray, he tracked it upon the deserts and went round about, and called it back with the pipe and pastoral melodies, and did all things, and suffered all things, until he should rescue that which was wandering. And he stretched out a hand to those slipping away from the straight path, and raised up those lying on the ground.

And what just rebuke he made against those who did wrong and behaved insolently and ran away from good order, and how he avenged those wronged and defrauded by their neighbours, and how great a love for mankind he had towards those who had sinned, throwing open to all the gates of repentance, and welcoming gladly and cheerfully, as an imitator of Christ, those who turned back, banishing from the very beginning of the divine proclamation the inhumanity and arrogance of Novatus from the sacred precincts,

our discourse will make clear to the hearers, touching lightly upon the narrative of the things dared by Demophilus, leaving those who shall read the things which the most admirable shepherd wrote to him to learn more completely. This Demophilus was one of the therapeuts ranged under the great sacred institutor Dionysius, hailing from the province under Athens, ordained a therapeut through his consecrating and all-holy laying on of hands; now this rank is styled monks, being called especially by that appellation at that time, appointed to stand at the gates of the sanctuary. Having then behaved tyrannically towards his own presbyter, and having leaped into the inner sanctuary, where it was not lawful for him to go, this man both thrust him back from the altar, and drove him out from the place of the consecrated men with dishonours and insults, being zealous, forsooth, and angry because the Christ-imitating priest had received a certain man repenting from sins, whom Demophilus, accounting him as some impious and accursed wretch, kicked away, though he confessed with shame that he had come for the healing of his evils and begged to obtain mercy. And having altogether thrust him away, he thought that he had achieved something great; wherefore also boasting mightily he reports to the greatest shepherd what had been done; to whom the most divine man wrote in reply that all-profitable and all-wise letter, instructive of all virtue and good order, whereby he signified both the ineffable compassion towards us—and especially towards those who repent—of our Lord Jesus Christ Who loves mankind, and his own God-imitating sympathy, bringing forward a horrifying story, which I shall set before you, O warmest lovers of hearing the greatest glories of the praiseworthy father.

"If you will," he says, "I shall also make mention of a divine vision of a certain holy man, and do not laugh; for I shall speak true things. When I was once in Crete, the sacred Carpus entertained me as a guest—a man, if ever there was another, most fit for divine vision on account of his great purity of mind; and indeed he never undertook the holy celebrations of the mysteries unless a sacred and propitious vision had first been manifested to him during the preparatory prayers. He said, then, that when a certain one of the unbelievers had once grieved him (and his grief was that that man had led astray a certain member of the Church unto godlessness while the gladsome days were still being celebrated by him), whereas he ought in a manner befitting goodness to have prayed on behalf of both, and taking God the Saviour as helper, to have converted the one, and overcome the other by goodness, and not to have ceased admonishing them throughout all life, so long as it is called today (Heb. 3:13), and thus to have led them unto divine knowledge, so that both the matters in dispute might now be judged for them, and those behaving with irrational insolence might be compelled by lawful justice to be of sound mind; yet, though he had never experienced this in himself before, I know not how at that time having steeped in himself a great ill-will and bitterness, he fell asleep in this evil state (for it was evening); and about midnight (for he was accustomed at that hour by himself to keep awake for the divine hymns) he rose up indeed,

having enjoyed without disturbance not even his slumbers themselves, which were many and continually interrupted; yet standing for the divine converse he was unholily vexed and indignant, saying that it was not just that godless men who pervert the straight ways of the Lord (Acts 13:10) should live. And saying these things, he begged God by some fiery thunderbolt to bring the lives of both to an end once for all without mercy. And having said these things, he said that he seemed to see suddenly the house in which he was standing shaken throughout, first divided in two in the middle from the roof, and a certain many-lighted fire before him (for the place now seemed open to the sky) borne down from the heavenly region even unto him; and the heaven itself opened wide, and upon the back of the heaven Jesus, with boundless human-formed angels standing beside Him; and these things indeed he saw above and marvelled at. And Carpus, having bent down, said that he saw the ground itself also rent asunder into a certain yawning and dark chasm; and those men against whom he was uttering curses standing before him at the mouth of the chasm, trembling, pitiable, all but borne down by the unsteadiness of their own feet; and from below out of the chasm serpents creeping up, and moving stealthily about their feet, at one time dragging them away, coiling themselves upon them together and weighing them down, and drawing them; at another time with their teeth or their tails enflaming or tickling them from beneath, and by all means contriving to cast them into the yawning gulf. And there were also certain men in the midst, joining with the serpents in attacking the men, shaking them violently at the same time and pushing them from beneath, and striking them down; and they seemed to be on the point of falling, partly against their will, and partly also of their own will, at the same time little by little forced and persuaded by the evil. And Carpus said that he was pleased looking below, and neglected the things above, and was vexed and impatient because they had not yet fallen; and having often set himself to the matter, and having been unable, he was both grieved and uttered curses; and having barely looked up, he saw again the heaven, just as he had seen it before, and Jesus, having taken pity on what was coming to pass, rose up from the supercelestial throne, and having come down even unto them, stretched out a kind hand, and the angels lending a hand together with Him, one from one side and another from another, held fast the two men, and Jesus, with His hand already stretched forth, said to Carpus: "Strike against Me henceforth; for I am ready to suffer even again on behalf of men that they may be saved, and this is pleasing to Me, provided other men do not sin. Only see whether it is well for you to exchange the mansion with God and the good and man-loving angels for that in the chasm and with the serpents." These are the things which I have heard and believe to be true.

You have altogether admired, then, the sympathy towards his own race of the high priest worthy of God, no less than the goodness towards us of the truly

good and most thearchic hierarch Christ, having heard of this admirable divine vision; and you will admire still more greatly if you hear of the apostolic contests, and courses, and gifts of grace, adorned with which he shone forth throughout the whole inhabited world. For he was not shepherd and teacher of the Athenians only, but also teacher of teachers, and shepherd of shepherds, and arbiter and lawgiver; nor was his course bounded as far as Greece, but even as far as Illyricum (Rom. 15:19), like unto his master and sacred founder Paul. For having received apostolic grace and power of signs, he both ran through everywhere apostolically like some winged bird, and proclaimed the Gospel of true life, catching alive and taking captive with apostolic drag-nets and all-catching meshes those held fast in the darkness of error out of the abyss of ignorance unto the light of truth. For that to those entrusted with the leadership and teaching of churches throughout diverse regions and islands he suggested, as a teacher and some other supreme apostle, instructive counsels and mystical teachings, is clearly proclaimed by the doctrines, and mystical initiations, and ordinances spoken by him to the most all-sacred presidents of the Ephesians, and Smyrnaeans, and Cretans—Timothy, and Polycarp, and Titus—who had been fore-ordained by the very foundations of the most holy Church, I mean the apostles; and that he also accomplished an apostolic course, and was glorified from God with marvellous wonder-workings, many other things also will confirm, according to which our discourse, as it proceeds, declaring the martyrial contests which he most steadfastly accomplished, will recount them; and especially the cloud that snatched him up on high from the western lot and lifted him up, and carried him travelling through the air—just as it also carried the supreme God-beholding and theologizing apostles, one from one side and another from another—suddenly from the ends of the earth unto all-venerable Jerusalem, the common mother of all Christians, and joined him to the disciples of Christ on the citadel of the divine mysteries, Sion, the mother of the churches, when the body of the all-pure Mother of God was being tended in funeral rites, honoured by the descent and encompassing of God the Word Who had ineffably become incarnate and been born of her, and attended as by a bodyguard by the heaven-treading angelic ranks, and borne aloft from Sion unto Gethsemane her heaven-imitating precinct upon the all-pure and divine apostolic heads and arms, and hymned and glorified by the Spirit-moved, fire-like, and most theologizing tongues; whence whole and entire, after the deposition in the tomb, she was taken up into the supercelestial lot, she who is higher than all the heavenly powers and rules as sovereign over all creation.

And we must hear the God-revealer himself proclaiming it; for there could not be another more trustworthy witness concerning the angel-befitting course through the clouds of that choir equal to the angels

of the cloud-borne gathering. Yet this too has been very carefully observed by us, that in the matters clearly elucidated by the divine master himself by way of manifest exposition he never at all set his hand to tautology, towards the same explanation of the oracle set before him; since even among our God-inspired hierarchs themselves (when we too, as you also know yourself, and many of our sacred brethren had gathered for the beholding of the life-originating and God-receiving body; and there was present also James the brother of God, and Peter, the chief and eldest summit of the theologians; and then it seemed good after the beholding that all the hierarchs should hymn, as each was able, the infinitely powerful goodness of the thearchic weakness), he surpassed all the other sacred initiates after the theologians, as you know, wholly departing from himself, wholly standing outside himself, and experiencing communion with the things hymned, and being judged by all by whom he was heard, and seen, and known, and not known, to be God-inspired and a divine hymnographer. And what should I say to you concerning the things theologized there? For indeed, unless I have even forgotten myself, I know that I have often heard from you also certain parts of those inspired hymnodies. Let no one, therefore, beloved, distrust the account, when he considers those around Cornelius, that they too, like those around Peter, and John, and James, were filled with the fire-formed grace of the all-holy Spirit, and spoke in tongues, and partook of wonder-working power; for how had those scattered everywhere, appointed one here, another there, to govern a parish and to fulfil an apostolic mission, come together thus all at once in an instant of time, unless each had been deemed worthy of a divine cloud-like chariot? And indeed to all those who at the beginning of the saving preaching approached the true faith, and were illuminated by the divine illumination itself, kinds of tongues, and gifts of healings, and workings of various powers were richly distributed by the Spirit Who is the giver of supernatural gifts and the principle of goodness, how much more to those such as the great apostolic Dionysius. But the sacred trumpet of his athletic martyrdom, sounding in due season, urges us to enter into and behold his divine contests, and transfers the discourse to the encomiastic narrative of his most glorious exploits.

Nevertheless, before stepping upon the threshold of the martyrial lists, this attentive audience ought to know that, following the God-inspired writings of the celebrated herald of God and hieromartyr, we have ascertained that his blessed contest took place in the last times of the reign of Trajan; since he says in the fourth chapter of the treatise On the Divine Names, where he hymns the appellation of eros: Yet it has seemed to some of our sacred expositors that the name of eros is even more divine than that of agape. And the divine Ignatius also writes: My eros has been crucified; for this saying the God-bearing Ignatius, when about to contend in Rome as a martyr,

and to be cast as food to the lions according to the command of [the] tyrant Trajan, [around] the ninth year of his tyranny, when he raised the persecution against the most pious Christians, wrote when sending a letter to the Romans; so that from this it is indicated that towards the end of the persecutor's tyranny, as we have already said, the hierophant Dionysius suffered martyrdom. And writing to the son of thunder, [who] most loftily and above every mind, both within the world [and] above the world, thundered and theologized, thrice-blessed John, confined in Patmos by sentence of Domitian, who reigned after Titus his brother, (for both were sons of Vespasian,) when around the last year of his reign he raged against the faithful, prophetically foretelling (for he also partook of prophetic grace): "Us on the contrary nothing shall deprive of the all-shining ray of John, who now indeed shall hold fast to the memory and renewal of your true theology; and a little later (for I shall say it, even if it be bold) shall be united to you yourselves. And I am altogether worthy of belief, having learned the things foreknown from God [and] saying that you shall also be released from the prison in Patmos, [and] shall return to the land of Asia, and shall perform [there] imitations of the good, and shall hand them down to those after you." When Domitian therefore had died not long afterwards according to the prediction of the divinely inspired Father who excelled in apostolic and prophetic gifts, Nerva, succeeding to the sovereignty, recalled [those] in exile. And at that time the greatest evangelist returned to the metropolis of the Ephesians, and the matters of the prediction received their fulfilment.

When Nerva had departed this life, having held the reins of the Roman rule for one year, the power fell to Trajan the tyrant, who, exceedingly elated by his victory over the Scythians and Thracians and very many different nations, and thinking that he ruled over no one unless he should also subject the all-pious assembly of the Christians to the service and worship of the demons and abominable carved images, fanned the flames of a most cruel persecution, and made all the [land] subject to [him] drunk with the blood of martyrs, sending forth everywhere most ruthless persecutors [of his] to shamelessly compel all Christians [to sacrifice] to the idols, or to put to death those who did not obey with all manner of kinds of tortures. The blessed Dionysius therefore, [and] thrice and many times so, having passed for a seventy-year time through ten thousand reproaches, and wars, and dangers both from his own countrymen, and formerly fellow-worshippers and companions, or rather unwise [philosophers], and having arrayed himself against so great multitudes of both barbarians [and] idol-mad Greeks, and against the most savage dispersion of the lawless and hostile Hebrews, and having run a double course of that which the much-contending and heaven-coursing Paul had run, at least as regards the extension of time, and [having drawn] countless peoples, through the signs and won- wrought by him by the operation of the all-holy Spirit,

ders, having netted them into the faith in Christ; and having passed through the longest and most grievous courses of the first persecution, which the first of the persecutors, and the worst of all who have ever reigned, and the most profane Nero stirred up against the fullness named after Christ, and slew the chief of Christ's disciples. And having bravely endured the subsequent storms, which the madness of Domitian brought against the faithful, and having proved tested in all things, he won renowned glory; whence winged report, running everywhere, sounded his all-praised name in the most harsh ears of Trajan, announcing like thunder the winged apostolic course which he pursued everywhere, and the great sweat, and toil, and the power in both deed and word, through which the most divine and saving faith preached was confirmed and broadened by signs and wonders marvellously wrought by him, and how the superstition of the Greeks and idolatrous worship was mightily pilloried and overthrown. Exceedingly troubled at these things, the rabid tyrant sent forth certain men beastly in mind, surpassing both Phalaris and Echetus who are notorious for beastliness and ruthlessness and cruelty, in the parts towards the setting sun to track down and pursue the herald of God, and if anywhere they should find him, if yielding to the imperial decrees, and enduring to serve the demons and to sacrifice, to honour him with honours, and bring him up attended by a bodyguard to himself, or if not obeying, to be punished on the spot by the cutting of the sword.

The servants of the devil therefore, urged on by the most godless tyrannical commands, like certain horses goaded by a gadfly, or famished beasts hastening to the hunt, ran through the Gallic land, and having gathered a mob of certain common fellows and executioners together from there, they sought out the all-celebrated revealer of God. And indeed, when it was informed to the persecutors that he was in Paris (a small town so called), riding in at a run, they overtook him there driving away the error and gloom of idol-madness both by the preaching of the truth, and by the radiance of the divine teaching, and by the wonder-workings of miracles. For the eyes of the blind received sight, and the ears of the deaf were opened, and the tongues of the stammering were made plain, and the feet of the lame were made firm, and those sick with various diseases were set free, at the invocation of the almighty Saviour, through His most wonderful servant working marvels, and calling those sitting in the darkness of ignorance towards the light of knowledge and salvation; for upon these things the multitude of the faithful increased, and temples to God were raised throughout Gaul, and Germany, the greatest province; while the number of the superstitious diminished, and the shrines of the idols were cast down, and the dominion and deceit of Beliar the enemy was trampled underfoot and led in triumph. Wherefore, not bearing to see his own power being overthrown, the wretched one drove his subjects and ministers

against the saint who was overthrowing his authority, and making an example of his shame, to madness; who, having furiously seized him together with Rusticus and Eleutherius, his most holy disciples and spiritual sons (of whom he consecrated the one a priest, and the other a deacon; for both contended together and ran together with their own master and guide to the light, just as Silvanus and Timothy did with Paul the luminary of the world), and having sat down upon a tyrannical tribunal, looking upon them with a dragon's gaze, and crying out with a lion's roar, asked saying: "O wretched old man, are you he who forbids the worship of our gods, and by magic art, and eloquence and sorceries persuades the peoples not to serve them, and resists the invincible emperors, and casts away the force of their decrees? To whom do you enroll yourself and of what religion are you, and what god do you preach?" And he, fearing their most audacious folly in nothing, replied very boldly: "I am the overthrower of your godlessness, and the destroyer of idolatrous abomination, and the pillorier of all Greek error, established by the power of Christ the only-begotten Son of God, to Whom I have also dedicated myself as a servant, Whom I also serve in my spirit, Who before all the ages was begotten from the Father impassibly and timelessly, and at the end of the ages was incarnate and born from the Virgin Mary without seed and corruption, having become a mortal like us in all things save sin, and through His own cross and death abolished the power of the devil, and put death to death, and descended even unto dismal Hades, and dissolved the darkness there, and by His three-day resurrection from the dead shone light upon the world, and poured forth life and incorruption; Who taught us to worship one God in three hypostases divided without confusion, that is in Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, Himself being one of the uncreated Trinity, co-eternal, and co-originate, and consubstantial with the Father, and with the Holy Spirit. This true God we preach; this pure and blameless faith of the Christians we proclaim; for this we are ready to suffer all things, fearing neither fire, nor sword, nor the fury of wild beasts, nor any kind of tortures whatsoever devised by you."

The tyrants therefore, astounded at the boldness of the most brave and much-learned old man, spoke again to him and his fellow-combatant disciples, breathing threats and raging madly: "By you, then, are the decrees and commands of our emperors and rulers despised, and the honour and authority of our unconquered gods disregarded?" And the divine hierarch, leading the martyrial battle-line both in word and in deed, answered again more boldly: "Perish every impious and God-opposing command of emperors and rulers, and gods who did not make the heaven and the earth; let them per-

ish as powerless, as miserable, as truly abominable, your gods, and worthy of no account; for they happen to be demons, and figments of an evil-demoned mind, and contrivances of human hands. Like unto them, therefore, may those who make them and all who trust in them become, deaf, and blind, and senseless. For we know Christ, Who truly is, to be both God and Creator of all things, and guardian, and bestower of life, and Him alone we worship, and preach, and place our hopes in Him, and are eager to die for Him, reckoning ourselves after the manner of sacred victims and offerings, and hastening to such a slaughter we rejoice exceedingly, as securely believing that we shall rise again, to obtain the better, and more blessed, and everlasting lot, and to be crowned with the immaculate crowns. While on the other hand those among you who do not believe in Him, but reject His divinity, and the true and eternal kingdom that has no end, and slay His servants, we shall behold delivered over to eternal fire and incurable and unceasing torments." Troubled at these things, the all-wicked and most impious persecutors, filled with wrath and fury, and gnashing their teeth, having drawn their swords, while the thrice-blessed herald of God eagerly stretched out his neck, cut off his divine and all-sacred head; after which they also cut off those of the pair of his attendants, and fellow-runners, and fellow-combatants no less than fellow-heralds, as one hastened to outstrip the other into the stadium of the martyrial contest and perfection by beheading, cheerfully thrusting forward their necks, and setting them comely before the stroke of the blade, so that they might not at all lag behind their tutor and sacred initiator in this perishable and thorn-bearing life, but might shortly depart together to the setter of the prize in the same manner as their teacher and guide, in the manner in which they also passed through the contests together, so that they might also at the same time be partakers together of the same crowns and rewards. For how would those who had been well tutored, and already exercised in many ways in many athletic exercises, and having Christ Himself as their divine love, through all of which they were taught to spare neither body nor soul, that they might delight in Him alone Who clearly is the tree of life, not have emulated the eagerness of their trainer and educator for the martyrial prowess? For just as a most mighty general, fighting in front of the army, inspiriting his fellow-fighters and commanding to sing the battle-song, is the first to engage the armies of the enemies; so the old man most experienced in the divine contests, having entered into a deep and rich old age, leaping first into the most blessed slaughter for Christ, carried off beforehand the crowns of victory, and made his sweetest sons ready to follow, and gladly to choose the like all-blessed death.

Who, therefore, him who for seventy years travelled the apostolic path, and preached Christ the Saviour, and sowed the noble and unadulterated seed of the saving word in many rational fields,

and reaped a prolific ear of corn, and laid up very genuine and precious fruits in the sacred barns? Who could praise as much as is due to praise him who for so great a length of time excelled evangelically, and was shown forth victorious in the midst of Christ-fighting tyrants, and a populace more beastly than lions and opposing [wolves]? What tongue would suffice for the narration of [his] virtues [and] achievements, and contests? At which the tribes of the earth were astounded, and the [powers] of the heavens marvelled, and Christ the all-King and distributor of the prizes welcomed them, and with triumphal proclamations, and recompenses of surpassingly bright crowns crowned him who had succeeded and contended through to the end. O the [sacred] and divinely inspired head, cut off for the true love of Christ! O the most all-sacred crown, which contained very many and greatest divine and ineffable things, which the world has not contained, which contended through ten thousand and long contests for the divine preaching! O that which stepped into the supercelestial orders, and apprehended and uttered the bounds of every word and mind! O that most divine soul, which through an angelic bodyguard flew up to [the] heavenly vaults! Which, ascending gloriously to the Lord of glory and giver of crowns Jesus, to receive the rewards of its glorious labours, each of the supermundane powers hymned, honouring its contest, and requiting it for the angel-like hymnody, which their common hymnist with divine inspiration and all-harmoniously composed; which the Jerusalem above, having opened her gates, took to her bosom; which the Church of the firstborn enrolled in the heavens embraced; which the spirits and [souls] of the righteous, holy and humble in heart, clasped in their arms, as having lived in righteousness and holiness, and in a moderate and divine kindly disposition, and having spoken [the truth] boldly even unto blood, and fought for it; in which the choir of the apostles fittingly gloried; over which the [company] of the prophets rejoiced, with which the assembly of the prize-winning martyrs keeps festival and makes merry, clad and arrayed in the royal purple woven and dyed from its own contests and blood,

We must therefore pronounce blessed the city that treasured up [the] God-crowned and all-venerable head of yours and precious relic, and those of the fellow-disciples whom as all-blameless victims [and] all-fragrant incense you offered to God, O best of all heralds of God and hierarchs and [martyrs]; and which was reddened with your holy [blood], from which a healing and fountains ever flow for those who take refuge [in faith], and ask for the healing of painful [disea]ses. Truly [this city] has been blessed, which in size indeed is [smaller] than the cities in Gaul, but by having been allotted you, O foremost of [teachers], to possess as a treasure more precious than all sensible [wealth] and as city-guardian and commander of the garrison, has become more brilliant; for you were given to her from God as a sanctification, sanctifying the Christ-loving gathering of the citizens and newcomers; and

spiritual wealth, providing luxury, not that which increases the bodily bulk, and sweetens the throat for a brief while, and swiftly perishes and wastes away, which earth and sea bring forth, and the sacred gulf, and the fish-bearing and deep-flowing river, which, encircling and resounding around, rivals the sea-like streams of the Nile. You have been set forth as a most strong wall, not fitted together and built of quarried and polished chosen stones, and supported by ramparts, and towers, and battlements, like an iron fence, but founded upon the holiness of yourself and of your fellow-athletes, and towered with your acceptable intercessions towards God, which bring down fire from heaven, consuming God-opposing captains of fifty and captains of a hundred and captains of a thousand together with their barbarian armies. You lie before us as a saving harbour, receiving those who come to anchor out of the storm of life, and warding off every adverse vicissitude; an intelligible meadow, like the paradise in Eden, and your most sacred precinct has been planted in her, affording every solace of soul to the faithful through the indwelling grace, and setting forth a table abounding in all manner of spiritual foods, feasting souls, and making them flourish, and procuring incorruptible life. As standing, therefore, in boldness before the divine and heavenly and intellectual altar in the midst of your fellow-crowned ones, propitiating on behalf of the whole world the gentle Jesus, the true God, and Hierarch, and giver of crowns, and cause and provider of all goodness, Whom you loved, Whom you preached, for Whose sake having had your neck cut off you worthily received the crown, may you watch over, and protect, and bless those now gathered together for this your sacred and venerable festival, and festively celebrating your all-lovely memory, and hymning and honouring your contest worthy of the prize of honour, propitiating and interceding with the merciful God, O most divine chief priest and most illustrious of martyrs, to remove the heaviness of the violence that encompasses us, and to put an end to the tyranny against us, and to ward off the gloom-bringing dejection; and to grant calm and deep tranquillity to the churches, a peaceful condition, so that, peace being awarded, and one harmony and concord of divine dogma prevailing, the true Chief Shepherd and Prince of peace, Christ, may be glorified with one mind by all, to Whom befits all glory, and honour, and might, together with His beginningless and consubstantial Begetter, and His all-holy and good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto the endless ages of the ages. Amen.